While You're Away

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

To make it sound classier, Tricia Patten called it a Gods and Goddesses party.

            Everybody was supposed to show up in togas. A lot of skin and a lot of beer to celebrate the crazy weather, almost eighty degrees in April. Unfortunately, The Avengers was a thing. That’s why half the Aphrodites at Tricia’s lake house that night were getting flirty with a palette of Thors.

            “I don’t think this is what Tricia had in mind,” I told my boyfriend, Dave Echols, grabbing his hand and nodding at the mixed-deity crowd as we set up our stage gear.

            With a grin, Dave said, “She wanted a party, she got a party,” and leaned over to kiss me.

            Dave and I were the intermission entertainment—a local band who would already be at the party when the deejay had to go pick up his mom at work. Usually, we played our own songs. But tonight it would be an hour of funny indie covers of frat rock songs.

            As I tested the pickup on my acoustic guitar, I cut a quick look at the crowd. A spotlight seemed to follow me, and not in a good way. Everyone hesitated and ran their eyes down my costume. The best expression was bafflement, but the worst was amusement. I forced a smile and kept setting up.   

I hadn’t gotten the memo that a sheet over a regular little black dress was enough of a costume. Geek that I was, I’d raided my sister Ellie’s closet. She danced for the Columbus Reparatory Ballet Theater, so she had plenty of bits and pieces that added up to a goddess. A gauze wraparound skirt over a silver-shot leotard. Silver slippers with matching ribbons crisscrossing my legs.

            Producing extra ribbon, Ellie threaded it through my thick, dark hair. Alternating white with gold, she plaited and twisted, taming my wild halo. Then, because it was a permanent part of her ballet DNA, she knotted it in a perfect chignon on the top of my head. Pulling tendrils out around my face, she considered the look. After taking a picture with her phone, she declared me ready to rock and sent me on my way.

            When I’d left home, I felt good—pretty, even. A little bare, because I never wore my hair up. But good.

            That confidence burned away as soon as I stepped onto the temporary stage in front of Tricia’s French doors. The party was packed, a wood dance floor stretched over the pool. Snacks and drinks circulated under a white light-strung arbor. And there I was, the trying-too-hard girl on stage, crazy obvious in front of a sea of sheets and plastic plate mail.

            Power-mingling, Tricia buzzed the stage. “You guys are so great. Thank you so much for doing this.”

            “Anytime,” Dave said, zeroing in on her.

            As soon as he did, Tricia turned her attention to him and him alone. Why shouldn’t she? With his fresh, all-American face, Dave got all kinds of attention. He was the blue-eyed, blond-haired boy next door, wrapped in a flag and carrying Mom’s apple pie. Seriously, at Fourth of July parades, people practically worshipped him. And after our gigs, girls did. By the bucketful, even if they had boyfriends.

            It had always bothered me when Dave flirted. Even if it meant nothing, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy whenever he turned his attention elsewhere.

            Tricia had her own boyfriend—none other than Will Spencer, our high school’s biggest player. Exactly nobody understood how she’d caught him and kept him. Tricia was well-off, gorgeous, and genuinely likable, definitely a catch. She stood apart from other girls, with a mane of copper hair and green eyes clear as glass. But Will had never seemed like the type to settle for one girl. Or ten. Or a hundred. Not when he could have his pick and have them all. Will and Tricia were the senior class’s enduring mystery.